Can You Guess the Political Party That’s On the Rise? — Survey of the Day

There aren’t a whole lot of popular politicians these days, Gallup would know. A new report from the research organization found a record percentage of Americans are identifying themselves as independents rather than Democrats or Republicans.

In the over 20,000 telephone interviews Gallup conducted in 2011, 31 percent of respondents said they were Democrats, 27 percent Republicans, and 40 percent said they were independents. According to Gallup’s records, that is the highest percentage of independents since they started to keep track of party identification 60 years ago.